


what missing someone feels like

by thekatriarch



Series: Aftermath [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Sad Ending, bad at feelings but trying, no happy ending, relationships are hard, survivor's guilt, what are feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:15:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22626961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekatriarch/pseuds/thekatriarch
Summary: She sighed, and he kissed her shoulder, holding her close. He felt drowsy and content, which was something he didn’t think he’d ever felt before Jyn. He yawned, kissed her shoulder again. “Mmmmm,” she murmured. “That was nice.”“I love you,” he said, without meaning to, and then suddenly he wasn’t drowsy anymore, as what he had just said sank in.“Hmm?” she asked. “What did you say?”He realized that he’d said it in Festian, not Basic, and was flooded with relief that she hadn’t understood him. “Nothing,” he said.She rolled over and looked at him. “If it was nothing,” she said mildly, “why did you start panicking right after you said it?”“What are you talking about?”She kissed him lightly and then laid her finger across his lips. “You’re a great liar, Cassian Andor, but you can’t lie to me. You never could.”* * * * *They weren't planning to come back from Scarif, but they did, so what happens now?
Relationships: Cassian Andor & Leia Organa, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Series: Aftermath [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627852
Comments: 46
Kudos: 44





	1. on thin ice

**Author's Note:**

> please be advised that the final chapter is very sad!

“Absolutely not. You’re still on extremely thin ice, Captain.” Draven barely looked up from the datapad he was examining.

“Sir—”

“No.” Now he looked up, sharp. “You don’t get to argue. You disobeyed orders, disobeyed the council—”

“The council was _wrong!”_

“You know how things work around here. This is the Rebel Alliance, not one of your little terrorist Separatist cells where everybody just does whatever they want. We have procedures. You want to go off half-cocked and do things without authorization? We haven’t even managed to tally up how many people we lost, that’s how bad the casualties at Scarif were. Half our fleet wiped out, Admiral Raddus dead, and then there’s the little matter of Alderaan—”

“You want to blame me for Alderaan? If it hadn’t been Alderaan it would have been somewhere else. And authorization? Like you got authorization from the council to assassinate Galen Erso or attack Eadu?”

The general held up his hand. “That’s enough, Captain. I understand that your _relationship,” —_ that word came out with a sneer — “with the daughter—”

“Jyn has nothing to do with this discussion,” Cassian objected,

“This _isn’t_ a discussion. You’re not going back out in the field until I’m satisfied that I can trust you to do what you’re told. You’re lucky your little stunt paid off, or you’d be facing a court-martial. Keep arguing with me and you’ll be calling yourself _Lieutenant_ Andor, do you understand me?”

Cassian gritted his teeth and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. You’re dismissed, Captain.” Draven looked back down at his datapad.

Medical cleared him to return to duty weeks ago, but Draven was refusing to let him do his job, and meanwhile his contacts were probably drying up all over the galaxy. Plus he kept throwing around that stupid threat to demote him, as if that meant anything to Cassian. Draven was Republic military from way back, so he thought things like rank were really meaningful. If he’d grown up in a “little terrorist Separatist cell,” like Cassian had, he’d know better. Cassian didn’t care what people called him or how many circles were on the insignia badge he hardly ever wore anyway. He just wanted to do his work.

He tried not to storm on his way back to his quarters. He was frustrated. He couldn’t stand it; doing nothing when they were at such a critical point. If they were going to stand any chance at all of making up their losses, they needed all the intel they can gather, and Draven was keeping him on the sidelines when he should have been out there getting it.

As far as Cassian could figure out, Draven was just being difficult out of pride. He was pissed that Cassian and Jyn had been right, and he’d been wrong, and apparently that mattered more to him than the survival of the rebellion. Draven had never sneered at him quite so openly about his background before this comment about his “little terrorist Separatist cell,” but it was no surprise to Cassian to hear it. The Republic people who made up most of the Alliance leadership never made any secret of the fact that they believed they had been on the right side of the Clone War, even though they’d been taking their orders from the Emperor. He just called himself Chancellor back then.

There was no point in holding a grudge over something twenty years past, but it was occasionally hard to be reminded that he worked for the same people who had bombed his childhood neighborhood into rubble. Among other things.

Jyn was sitting on his bunk when he got back to his quarters. “I take it it didn’t go well?” she said, with a ghost of a smile.

“Hey.” He felt his bad mood start to evaporate. He didn’t really know what to make out of how he felt around Jyn, but he was trying, not very successfully, not to worry about it. “What are you doing here?” he asked, smiling.

“Nowhere else to be,” she said, standing up. “How was your meeting?” She put her arms around his neck, looking up at him.

He grimaced. “Draven’s still pissed. Apparently his pride is more important than anything else.”

“He’ll come around,” said Jyn.

“Yeah. Hopefully before it’s too late.” He bent and touched his forehead to hers.

“I guess you’ll just have to find something else to keep you busy,” Jyn said, running a hand along the back of his neck.

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Hmm,” she said. “I can probably think of something.” She kissed him, pulling him toward her and stepping back toward the wall. He knew what that meant, so he gave her just a little shove, pressing himself up against her with her back against the wall. She broke their kiss and bit down on his shoulder, hard, and then moved like she was going to hit him, so he caught her wrists and pinned them over her head. He lifted his knee up between her legs and she made another little noise and gasped out, “Cassian.”

“What?” he breathed into her ear. “What do you want, Jyn?”

“You know what I want,” she told him.

He kissed her neck, bit down gently at the place where her neck met her shoulder, and she squirmed. “I think you’d better tell me,” he whispered, increasing the pressure of his knee between her legs. She rubbed up against him. “I think you’d better be really, really specific.” And he kissed her again.

* * * * *

Afterward, she lay there in his arms and he ran his fingers up and down the skin on her back, and she sighed.

“You’re a pretty good distraction,” he said, kissing her hair. 

She put her head on his chest, looking at his face. “Is that so?”

He wanted to kiss her again, so he did. She made a soft little humming sound and reached down between them, brushed her fingers over him. “You ready to go again already, Captain?”

He laughed a little, caught her hand and pulled it away, lifting it to his lips and kissing it. “Maybe not quite yet. But if you need more…” Now he reached down between them, finding her still wet and sensitive, gently teasing her with his fingertips. “I’m sure I can help you out,” he finished, in a whisper.

She hummed again and shifted her hips a little to improve the angle. “That’s nice,” she said softly. He rolled her onto her back and kept touching her, slowly. Oh, she was beautiful, her neck all flushed, her eyes closed, her lips parted, her hips gently rising and falling to meet him. He bent and kissed her neck and she sighed.

Jyn usually preferred it a little rough, and he was happy to oblige her, but this was always Cassian’s favorite part; afterward, when he could take his time with her, really explore. She was so sensitive after a couple of orgasms that it took almost nothing to get her there again, so the game he liked to play was to get her to the brink and then back off just enough to keep her there without going over the edge, until she was frantic and begging. It was a difficult game, but he was getting pretty good at it.

He managed to keep the game going for a while, but not as long as he would have liked. After she came, she lay there panting and trembling and he very gently kissed her mouth before he lay back down and curled up around her.

She sighed, and he kissed her shoulder, holding her close. He felt drowsy and content, which was something he didn’t think he’d ever felt before Jyn. He yawned, kissed her shoulder again. “Mmmmm,” she murmured. “That was nice.”

“I love you,” he said, without meaning to, and then suddenly he wasn’t drowsy anymore, as what he had just said sank in.

“Hmm?” she asked. “What did you say?”

He realized that he’d said it in Festian, not Basic, and was flooded with relief that she hadn’t understood him. “Nothing,” he said.

She rolled over and looked at him. “If it was nothing,” she said mildly, “why did you start panicking right after you said it?”

“What are you talking about?”

She kissed him lightly and then laid her finger across his lips. “You’re a great liar, Cassian Andor, but you can’t lie to me. You never could.”

“That’s because I don’t want to lie to you,” he said, and it felt strange to say so, but it was true.

She smiled and kissed him again, and then they fell into a comfortable, sleepy silence.

Cassian was always stuck in the future, planning, thinking as many steps ahead as he could. Part of the deal he made with himself when he decided to try to be with Jyn was that he wouldn't waste time worrying about what came next, that he would let it breathe.

But the habits of a lifetime weren’t easy to shake, and now he found himself thinking about what would happen when he finally went back to work.

Did he really love her? Had he meant it? He couldn't imagine himself saying it if it weren't true. Well, he could; he'd lied about it before, for work. But for it to slip out, in _Festian,_ while he was curled up with her in his arms… He loved her. He could say it and not mean it in Basic, but not in Festian.

When he went back to work, they might not see each other for weeks at a time. Months. Every time he left it might be the last time he ever saw her. How was that going to work? People did it. There were plenty of couples in the Alliance, and he knew of a few relationships with more than two. They managed. Somehow.

"Hey," said Jyn. "Stop worrying."

"Huh?"

"I can tell when you've started thinking again because your body gets so tense," she said. "You're practically vibrating. Relax."

"I know," he said. "I’m sorry. Relaxing isn't really something I'm good at."

"I know," she said, with a little laugh. "But I thought you said you were going to try."

"I _am_ trying."

"What are you worrying about?" she asked.

"Just… how this works. When I go back out. We're not going to see each other very much."

"That's true," said Jyn. "Maybe that's a good reason not to waste the time we have together on worrying and just enjoy it, instead?"

"Maybe," he admitted. "You might have a point."

"Since you mention it," she added. "I didn't want to say anything until it was for sure, but I got recruited."

"Recruited by who?"

"Madine," said Jyn.

He sighed. "The Pathfinders?"

“Yeah.”

Jyn’s background as a member of Saw Gerrera’s cell made her a good fit for the Pathfinders, who used guerrilla tactics like Jyn had been using since childhood. A lot of the people Cassian recruited to go to Scarif had been Pathfinders; the nature of the work they did meant they worked pretty closely with Intelligence, so he’d known them pretty well, known who he could ask. Jyn would be useful there. But he didn’t have to like it. "You’ll be good at that,” he said, reluctantly. “But I really hate it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Two months to go from 'never had the luxury of political opinions' to joining the Pathfinders, huh?"

She shrugged, smiling. "Well, I met someone who really inspired me."

"Bodhi?"

She kissed him again. "Yes," she said. "Definitely Bodhi." She looked pensive for a moment, and then added, "you know I meant you, but you're right. It was all of them. Bodhi, and everyone." She rolled over and sat up.

"Where you going?" he asked.

"I can't talk about them if we're undressed," she said.

“So let’s not talk about them,” he said. Cassian didn't like thinking about all the people he knew who were dead. He didn't like thinking about anything that he couldn't fix. His life had been full of so many losses. If he let himself feel them all, it would drown him.

She pulled her shirt over her head and tossed him his. “You want to just pretend none of it ever happened, don’t you?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “That’s not it. I never said— you’re putting words in my mouth.” He was feeling flustered now. “I just don’t… What good does it do? We can’t change it. They’re dead.”

“No,” said Jyn. “We can’t change it. But we can remember them. We _have_ to remember them, or it will be like they never existed.”

“I do remember them,” he said. “Of course I do. But they’re dead, and we’re alive, and I just… don’t understand how that happened. Maybe we could have gotten them out, too, if we’d—”

“Cassian,” she said. “You couldn’t even stand up. I still don’t know how you ever managed to get up on the tower with me. You should be dead.”

“I _should_ be dead,” he said, and his voice was louder than he expected it to be. “You’re right. I should be dead and I’m not. Why aren’t I dead?”

“Cassian,” she said, gently, taking his face in her hands. He closed his eyes.

“I wasn’t planning on coming back,” he said, just above a whisper. He had not said this out loud before, and saying it made him feel sick. He’d had every expectation of dying on Scarif, had planned on it from the moment he’d decided to go. He had hoped he could get Jyn out, and some of the others. He’d never expected to come back himself.

She kissed his forehead. “I know. But you did. We did, together.”

His face felt hot and there was a pressure behind his eyes that might have been tears. He nodded, trying to get control of himself again.

“Cassian,” said Jyn again. “It’s okay. You can let go.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t.” He could never let go. He might never find his way back.

“Okay,” she said, stroking his hair. “It’s okay. It’s just me. You’re safe.”

That seemed to rip something out of his chest, and he squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could and buried his face in her neck. He had to get a hold of himself. This wasn’t him. Jyn was gently rubbing his back, not saying anything. Desperate to feel something else, he started kissing her neck.

“Cassian, stop it,” she said. “Look at me.” He couldn’t. “You can’t just run to sex every time you have a feeling that makes you uncomfortable. Is that how you’ve been living?”

“So what?” he said, and he was getting angry now. “So what if it is? What difference does it make to you?” He turned away from her, pulled his clothes on, angry, and much more comfortable being angry than he was with whatever he’d been feeling before.

“Cassian, I care about you. And you’re miserable.”

“So? Of course I am. Crying about it isn’t going to help.”

“It might,” said Jyn. “If you let yourself actually feel your feelings once in a while.”

He refused to look at her, shaking, eyes still hot with unshed tears. She sighed. “I better go. I have a meeting later, and I need to get cleaned up first.”

“What meeting?” he asked, reluctantly.

“With Madine. I’ll see you later?”

He just looked at the floor. He knew he was being a jerk, but he couldn’t seem to make himself do what she wanted him to do. “Okay,” he managed to say.

When she was gone, he grabbed the closest thing to hand, which was the thin pillow on the bunk, and threw it across the room. He was going to ruin this thing with Jyn, like he’d ruined every rare little good thing that had ever come into his life. She would find someone else, someone who wasn’t so closed off, someone who had feelings, someone who could fucking tell her that he loved her, on purpose, in a language that she understood.


	2. just try to come back

“Jyn Erso!” Elaria flung herself into the seat across from Jyn at the canteen. “You’re coming with us to Daxon Prime, I heard.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s what I heard, too.”

“Gonna be a shitshow,” said Elaria. “I can’t wait. Where’s our boy?”

Jyn shrugged. “I don’t know.” The very last thing she wanted to talk about was Cassian. Elaria just knew Cassian too well; they’d known each other since they were little kids, so Elaria had probably seen whatever it was that Cassian was working so hard to keep hidden from everyone else. 

“Is he mad that we snaked you for Pathfinders? I bet he was hoping to get you for Intel, that closet romantic.”

Jyn snorted. “Draven hates me, and it’s mutual. Intel was never going to happen.” Cassian a romantic, she thought. Yeah, right. But Elaria knew him better than anyone. 

“Draven’s a dick,” said Elaria. “Hey, did you hear about the princess?” 

Elaria was friends with everyone and knew everyone’s business. Jyn wasn’t usually interested in other peoples’ personal business, but she was relieved to have a topic of conversation besides Cassian. “What about her?” She hadn’t seen the princess since she’d come to Cassian’s hospital bed back on Yavin.

“She ran off, right after Yavin. Command’s been having a shit fit over it.”

“Ran off?”

“Yeah, just took off in a ship without permission and went off to do… something. Somebody must know what, but nobody’s talking. Anyway, Command’s furious. Pretty stupid if you ask me. She’s not even military, they don’t have real authority over her.”

“Not her ship, though,” said Jyn. She was only half paying attention. She was still thinking about Cassian. She had pushed him a little too hard. But it was so hard to watch him try to stop himself from feeling anything. She understood the urge to try to protect yourself like that; she’d been doing the same thing. But she’d been so lonely and miserable the last few years. She’d thought it was better just to harden herself to everything rather than let it hurt her. She was starting to believe she’d been wrong. Everything was different now; _she_ was different. Finally seeing her father again had changed her. Cassian had changed her, woken her up. She wanted to wake him up, too.

“Hey,” said Elaria. “Where are you right now?”

“What?” She blinked her eyes several times, rapidly, trying to come back to reality. “I don’t know. I was just… thinking about something else.”

Elaria gave her an assessing look. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” said Jyn. “I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

* * * * *

It felt a little foolish to go knocking on Cassian’s door again so soon, but if she was going to leave on this mission early tomorrow, she needed to talk to him first, so that’s where she went.

He opened the door and looked at her for a second like he was surprised to see her, and then he said “I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” she said, and hugged him. “I shouldn’t have pushed you like that.”

He pulled her into the room and let the door close behind them. “No,” he said. “You’re right. About me. I’m not… I’ve spent my whole life trying not to feel… well, anything.”

“I know,” she said. “So have I. It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s okay.”

“I want to try. Because I…” He paused and closed his eyes, which she was beginning to recognize was what he did when he was trying to say something that made him feel vulnerable. “I love you. That’s what I said before. Te amo, I love you. It just sort of… came out, and then I panicked, because I’ve never said that to anyone before.” He was shaking a little with the effort of admitting it. “Don’t say anything,” he said. “I can’t— just don’t say anything.”

Jyn kissed him, not knowing what else to do, and when they broke apart, he said, “don’t say anything,” again, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and felt something in her throat. She had to tell him that she was leaving tomorrow. How was she supposed to do that now?

“Cassian,” she said softly.

“They’re sending you out, aren’t they?” he asked.

She nodded.

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

His arms tightened around her. “That’s really soon.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “I’d have left by now, if I could.”

“Come on,” she said, and led him to his bunk.“We’ve still got tonight.” She stroked his face and he closed his eyes. She saw his lips move, silently forming words that she couldn’t hear, and she drew him close and kissed him. His hand on the small of her back pressed her right up against him, and then he rolled her onto her back and started kissing her neck.

“Jyn,” he breathed. She reached for his shirt, to pull it up and off, and ran her hands up along his back and his chest. All she wanted right now was to touch him. It was going to have to sustain her until she saw him again, and that might not be for a long time.

They undressed each other slowly and he kissed her, so tenderly, working his way down her body, whispering her name over and over again: Jyn, Jyn, Jyn. Cassian, who had always been so in control of himself, so disciplined, who always held something back, even when they were tangled up with each other like this, suddenly giving himself up to her like this. It was overwhelming.

He settled between her legs, kissing her there as she arched her back and let out a little sound, and he glanced up at her with a little smile before going back to his work. So careful, so gentle, so slow and deliberate. She let her hands land in his hair, closed her eyes and let it roll over her until she came.

She looked down at Cassian, who was looking up at her now with eyes filled with such unbelievable tenderness that it was all just a little too much, and tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

“Jyn?” he asked. “What’s wrong?” He looked so worried.

“Nothing,” she said. “I just… I love you, too.” It came out with a little sob.

“And that’s making you cry?” he asked, sounding uncertain. 

She shook her head. “Not exactly.” She wiped her tears away, touched his face. “Sometimes when I have a lot of feelings all at once there’s nowhere for them to go, so they come out my eyes. That’s never happened to you, has it?”

“No,” he said.

“Te amo,” she told him, hoping she was saying it right, and he kissed her again.

* * * * *

They lay there in each other’s arms, exhausted but happy. “I’m going to miss you,” she said, quietly.

“Yeah,” said Cassian. “Me too. Will you still love me when you come back?” 

“I can’t think of a reason I wouldn’t,” she said.

“Anything could happen,” he said. “Just try to come back.”

“I will,” she said. “I’ll come back.”

“You can’t promise that,” said Cassian. “Wherever you’re going, it’s going to be pretty rough. Don’t promise me you’ll survive, just promise that you’ll try, okay?”

“Okay,” said Jyn. “And you promise me the same thing? No more suicide missions?”

“No more suicide missions,” he agreed.

“Then I’ll see you when I see you,” she said.

* * * * *

They were both light sleepers. When Jyn woke up, he woke up, too, startled. “What’s wrong?” he said.

They’d been through this before. One or the other of them was always being scared out of sleep, which was why they’d agreed early on that it was probably better for them to do their actual sleeping in separate quarters. But this had been their last night together for who knew how long, so she’d stayed.

“Nothing,” she told him, gently. “I’m just getting up.”

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Oh-five-hundred. We’re leaving at six. I have to go.” She started putting her clothes on.

“So we have an hour,” he said, tugging at her hand, trying to get her back into bed.

“No, we don’t. I have stuff I have to do before I go.” She bent and kissed him. “I love you. I’ll see you later. Get some more sleep.”

He pulled her back down to kiss her again. She was starting to wonder if maybe she could spare a few minutes to go again after all when he let her go. “Be careful,” he said.

“You too,” she replied.

He almost rolled his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere for a while.”

“You’ll find a way to get yourself into trouble,” she told him with a little smile. “I love you.”

“I love you,” he said, and he looked like he was surprised to find himself saying it, even though he’d said it first.


	3. a recipe for loneliness

He gave his report to the council and was dismissed. It was a relief to be working again; all that wasted time when he’d been stuck on a ship doing nothing had been impossible, especially after Jyn left. 

He’d been on Coruscant for three months, cultivating new informants inside the government. The mass arrests and dissolution of the Senate in the aftermath of Scarif meant most of their old contacts were dead, in prison, or, at best, no longer had access to any useful information.

Things had gotten pretty chaotic on Coruscant for a while after Scarif. First had come the dissolution of the Senate and the arrests and executions of numerous senators and their staff who were suspected of rebel activity or sympathies. Some of them had been guilty, but a lot of them weren’t. Then the destruction of Alderaan. That had shaken people up all over the galaxy. If a place like Alderaan could be destroyed so effortlessly, without even the formality of a show trial for the leaders who were accused of treason, then no one was safe. For a while, there had even been mass protests in the streets, which was virtually unheard of. The Emperor put a stop to that quickly by slaughtering the protesters. 

And then Yavin. The miracle that was Yavin. The first major battle in what was now an active war, and the rebels had won. Not only won the battle, but scored a major propaganda victory, too. The Death Star was supposed to be proof of the Empire’s invincibility.

Yavin was proof that resistance was possible, and Alderaan was proof that it was necessary. Recruitment still wasn’t easy and never would be, but more people were more open to it than they had been even a few months ago.

Now he was at the temporary headquarters for the Alliance on Baraan-Fa, to give a report and wait for his next orders. He would probably be sent right back to Coruscant to keep doing what he’d been doing, but he was hoping to get sent somewhere else. He disliked Coruscant. Or to be more specific, he disliked the wealthy and powerful people there. Plenty of Coruscant was poor and run down, full of people he understood, but the point of his work there was to get close to the elites. He could speak Basic with a Core accent if he wanted, could shave his face, put on nice clothes, and blend in perfectly with those people, but he was still a poor boy from Fest and he preferred to talk and look and act like it. He’d never given up the nationalist ideals he’d been raised with. He knew it made some of his superiors here at the Alliance uncomfortable, but that was their problem.

“Cassian Andor! I heard you were here!”

He turned toward the voice. “Your Highness,” he said. The princess was a rare exception to Cassian’s dislike of the rich and powerful. He wasn’t sure why. The whole concept of monarchy disgusted Cassian and always had. She was rich and beautiful and had moved through the world with the absolute confidence of the rich and beautiful, casually dispensing with the formality of her title in the way only someone secure in her power could do. She could also be cold and haughty when she wanted to be, and he really shouldn’t have liked her, but he did anyway. Her zeal for the cause had surprised him when he first met her, and she'd been very helpful to him on several occasions, back when she was in the Senate. And she had a crush on him, which probably helped.

“I wish you’d call me Leia,” she said, scowling at him playfully. “How long are you planetside?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “Not long.”

“Well, are you busy right now? I just got off duty.”

Leia wasn’t a girl you said no to, and he had nowhere else to be. Jyn wasn’t here; he’d asked around about the Pathfinders as soon as he landed, and they were all offworld somewhere, doing something incredibly dangerous. He hadn’t seen her since that morning she’d kissed him goodbye, almost four months ago.

“Off duty?” he said. “What do they have you doing now that there’s no Senate?”

“Oh you know, boring stuff. Supplies and data work and that kind of thing. And sitting in on council meetings and taking notes. Why, you need help in Intel?” She grinned at him.

“You’re the most famous rebel in the galaxy,” he said. “Your undercover days are over, princess.”

“Leia,” she said. “And I know, but I’m sure I could make myself useful anyway. Come on, everybody hangs out down this way, there’s kind of a bar.”

“A bar?” Cassian echoed. “I don’t drink.”

“Well, I do,” she said. “And I’ve had a long day and I want to talk to my friend. You can drink water.” She dragged him down the hall and he followed along. “We _are_ friends, right?” she added. “I mean I always thought so, but I never got your opinion.”

“I don’t really have friends,” said Cassian. There was Ellaria, but she was more like family.

“So you need one, then,” said Leia as he followed her into the room, a dimly lit makeshift lounge with scattered groups of people talking or playing cards.

“I guess I do,” he said. 

Leia found a bottle of something and poured herself a glass, sniffing at it experimentally and then taking a sip. She made a little face. “It’s no Toniray, but it’ll do. You sure you don’t want some?”

“I’m sure,” he said. He was, as he always did when he entered a room, sketching out in his mind what he would do if they were attacked. A room full of drunk people with only one exit was a bad place to be if something did happen, and the last thing he wanted was to be impaired himself.

“You’re always so jumpy, Cassian Andor,” said Leia, sitting down. “What’s going on in your head?”

He may as well be honest. “There’s only one exit,” he said. “Very little cover. Everyone in here is drinking. If stormtroopers—”

“If stormtroopers breached the base, we’d hear about it long before they made it here,” Leia interrupted. “We have sentries posted all around the outside and there’s a ton of personnel onsite. There’d be an alarm and an announcement. They’re not going to sneak in and come _here_ first.”

“They might if they knew you were in here,” he said.

“People say I worry too much, but they’ve clearly never met you,” she said. She was more cheerful than he would have expected, given everything that had happened, but it was probably a mask. She was good at wearing masks.

“You said you were sitting in on council meetings?” said Cassian, changing the subject. “How come I didn’t see you in my briefing just now?”

“Whatever you’re doing is still too secret for the likes of me,” she said. “I’m in disgrace, didn’t you know? I can’t be trusted to do what I’m told.”

“That sounds familiar,” said Cassian, smiling a little. “What did you do?”

“I stole a ship and left without authorization,” she said, shrugging. “But I had to. I did _ask_ permission first, but Dodonna said no. Well, it still needed to be done, so I did it. I guess that _does_ sound pretty familiar to you, doesn’t it?” She smiled at him.

“It does.”

“I can’t believe you got in trouble for Scarif,” said Leia. “That’s ridiculous. We’d all be dead if you hadn’t gone. The rebellion would be over.”

“Not over,” said Cassian. “You can’t kill something like this, not all the way dead. There’s always going to be some people fighting back.”

“Well,” she said. “We’re a lot better off now than we would have been if you hadn’t gone.”

“Some of us,” said Cassian, and then, haltingly: “Leia. I’m sorry. If I had known—”

“Stop,” she said. “I absolutely forbid you to blame yourself for Alderaan. You _couldn’t_ have known, for starters, and secondly, if the council had backed you to begin with, like they should have, I never would have been there in the first place, so it’s as much their fault as anyone’s. And… we were always going to be on the list.” She looked down for a moment. “Tarkin had suspected us for years. He was just looking for an excuse, and he would have found one, eventually. It could have been anything. At least… We would have been just one of hundreds, if we hadn’t gotten those plans.” 

He nodded but didn’t say anything.

“Well, this is a fun conversation,” said Leia. “There has to be something less horrible we can talk about. Or,” and now she dropped her voice down just above a whisper. “We could go to my quarters for a bit, if you want.”

Leia had never made any particular secret out of her attraction to him. He’d tried not to encourage her too much, because she’d been a teenager, but flirting and hookups were one of the few sources of entertainment available to him, so he hadn’t exactly discouraged her, either. She’d kissed him a couple of times and they’d fooled around just a little; anyone would, if an actual princess kissed them, but she was so young, he never felt right about taking it any further than that. Now, of course, it was completely out of the question.

“I can’t,” he said slowly.

“That’s too bad. Why not? Jyn Erso?”

He nodded, feeling a little foolish.

“That’s good,” said Leia. “That’s really good. For you. Not for me.” She gave him a little grin.

“Why do you say that?” he asked. Ellaria had responded to the news in the same way. _Good,_ she’d said.

“Because it _is_ good,” said Leia, and she looked at him very seriously. “Because you’re really lonely.”

He drew back. “What makes you say that?”

She shrugged. “I’ve known you a while. You said it yourself, you don’t really have friends. You never relax. You’re always thinking about what if stormtroopers come through the door, even when it doesn’t make any sense to. And you don’t want to let yourself feel things, because you’re afraid you won’t be able to handle it, right? I’m the exact same way. If I let myself think about what happened, really think about it? I’d probably die. It would kill me. So I don’t think about it. You do the same thing. And that’s a recipe for loneliness.”

He wondered if she was aware that this amounted to a confession that she herself was lonely, but he didn’t ask. 

Someone came through the door, and he felt Leia stiffen and heard her mutter, “oh, great,” so he immediately zeroed in on the man. Tall, clean shaven, moving with a kind of studied indifference that covered up some real insecurity. He spotted Leia and Cassian and walked over.

“Hello Your Worship,” the man said. “Making new friends?” 

“An old friend, actually,” said Leia, in the haughtiest voice Cassian had ever heard her use. "Cassian, this is Han Solo. This is Captain Cassian Andor."

Ah. Solo was the smuggler who had gotten Leia off the Death Star and brought her back to Yavin with the plans, and then been instrumental in winning the Battle of Yavin.

“Good to meet you,” said Cassian. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Really? Is that a fact?” Solo was looking at Leia with an expression that Cassian didn’t like; there was a possessiveness there that concerned him. “You’ve been talking about me to your friends, sweetheart?”

Leia went even more tense. “No,” she said shortly. “Cassian knows everything about everyone.”

“I’m afraid I can’t say the same,” said Solo. “I’ve never heard of you. No offense. Cassian, was it?” He pronounced it wrong.

Leia bristled. Cassian wasn't interested in getting into a pissing contest with this guy, but he was getting worried about the princess. She was obviously uncomfortable with the attention from Solo, who was too old to be looking at a twenty-year-old girl like that in the first place.

“Well,” said Solo. “I hope you don’t mind if I join you. What are you drinking, _Cassian?”_ The antagonism, which must be coming from jealousy, was definitely concerning.

“Actually,” said Leia. “We were just leaving, weren’t we?”

“Is that so,” said Solo, and it didn’t sound like a question.

“That’s right,” said Cassian, keeping his voice level and polite, even friendly, as if he hadn’t even noticed Solo’s hostility. The last thing he wanted was to escalate the situation and put the princess in danger. He’d get her out of here and then find out what was going on. He stood up, following Leia’s lead. “Nice to meet you,” he said politely. “I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you will,” Solo replied.

In the passage outside, Leia sighed deeply. “Thanks,” she said.

“That guy been bothering you?” asked Cassian, steering her down the passage and tossing a quick glance over his shoulder to ensure that Solo hadn’t followed them.

“Yeah…” she said. “Sometimes he’s okay, but I knew when he saw me talking to you he was going to get weird about it. It’s like he thinks… I don’t know.” Her cheeks were a little pink. He was really getting worried about her now.

“I don’t like that,” said Cassian. “I don’t like that at all. He ever try anything besides talk?” 

She turned even pinker. “No,” she said, a little too quickly. “Nothing like that.”

“Good,” he said. “If he ever does, you tell me as soon as you can, okay? You shouldn’t have to put up with that.”

“It’s fine, Cassian. It’s not a big deal.” She looked embarrassed.

He felt a little flash of anger. Command was always so fucking precious about Leia and how she had to be protected and sheltered and not get near any dangerous work, even though she was good at it, but here they were standing by while some guy twice her age harassed her.

“Okay, Leia,” he said. “If you say so. You let me know if you want me to have a conversation with him.”

She looked at him sidelong. “I have enough people trying to fill in for my dad, Andor. I don’t need another one. Anyway, it’ll just make him pout. He’s kind of a baby. But it’s really not that bad, I promise. He was only being such a jerk because you’re so good-looking.”

That didn’t really put his mind at ease, but obviously she didn’t want to talk about it, so he let it go.

“So I guess we’ll go to my quarters after all,” said Leia. “I promise to behave myself.”

* * * * *

He wished Draven would just give him his orders. He’d been here for most of a day already. He was sick of waiting around, and when he wasn’t working, he had too much time to wonder about Jyn. They’d had such a short time together; he wished he’d appreciated it more at the time. 

This must be what missing someone felt like. It had been a lot of years since he’d let himself care about anyone enough to miss them, and he didn’t like how it felt. It was uncomfortable, painful even. And distracting. At least when he had a mission he could fill the time with that, but right now, waiting for Draven to decide what to do with him, he was restless and bored and he missed her, and he hated it.

He’d spent a little more time with Leia before finally extricating himself, pleading exhaustion, so he could return to his ship and lie down. She hadn’t wanted to let him go. She _must_ be lonely. Her whole family and most of her friends were dead, and she hadn’t had a lot of time to get used to the idea, like Cassian had. Besides Solo, who apparently never left her alone, she’d made friends with the kid who’d fired the shot that destroyed the Death Star, back when Cassian and Jyn had been curled up together in his hospital bed.

Jyn. He closed his eyes. The princess had said he was really lonely. He didn’t think he had been, but maybe he was now that he had someone to miss.

This was impossible. How did people do it?

* * * * *

Draven was handing out assignments, and that was how Cassian found out that the Pathfinders were coming back to base the next day. He had just a moment of excitement before Draven told him he was to go back to Coruscant immediately.

He waited after the briefing. “What do you want, Captain?” said Draven. “You were dismissed.”

“I was hoping I could delay leaving another day,” he started, and Draven cut him off.

“No. You leave today. That’s all.”

“Sir-”

“Are you going to make me repeat myself, Captain?”

He gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. “No, sir.”

“Good. You’re dismissed.”

He left the room and started on his way back to his ship. Draven wasn’t being particularly subtle about what he was doing here. Cassian had been here for three days; he could have sent him back to Coruscant at any time. Instead he waited until Jyn was coming back. How childish could he be?

You’re being paranoid, Andor, he told himself, but he knew his instincts were good.

He thought about recording a message for Jyn. Leia would deliver it to her if he asked. But the idea made him feel itchy and vulnerable. It had been so long; maybe Jyn didn’t even care about him anymore. Maybe she didn’t really love him; just everything they’d been through together had made her think that she did.

Instead of a hologram, he wrote her a note. That was hopelessly old-fashioned; nobody wrote things on paper anymore. But back home, living in hiding, data tablets had been rare, or at least the power to run them was, so they’d used paper. And paper couldn’t be hacked. So Cassian liked to keep some around, just in case.

Jyn, he wrote. I wanted to stay long enough to see you, but they wouldn’t let me. I miss you. Don’t forget about me. Te amo siempre — I love you always. Cassian.


	4. counting scars

“What if we left?” said Cassian, breaking the cozy silence that had fallen over them.

She shifted, sleepily. “What do you mean, left?” 

“You and me. What if we went somewhere else?”

“Like run away together?” she asked, gently teasing.

He sat up, leaned back over her, face to face. “Yeah.”

“That’s awfully romantic of you,” she said. “But you know you couldn’t really do it. Abandon the rebellion? That’s what you care about the most.”

“I’m not sure that it is,” he said thoughtfully.

“Cassian,” she said, not sure what else to say. 

“I know.” He lay down again. “I just missed you, and I didn’t like it. I haven’t missed someone in a long time. I didn’t know it would feel like that. I don’t like it.”

“I didn’t like it either,” she said. It had been a long, long six months apart. It felt like a miracle that they were on the same planet at the same time, and they were only going to get about twelve hours before Cassian had to leave again. They were already almost halfway through it.

“I’m pretty sure the general has been trying to keep me away from you,” said Cassian. “I used to work with the Pathfinders all the time.”

“Can’t blame him,” she said, kissing him lightly. “I’m clearly a bad influence on you. First I got you disobeying orders, and now you’re talking about desertion.”

“Not _desertion,”_ he objected. “More like… retirement. I’ve been fighting this war for twenty years. I’m starting to wonder if… I don’t know.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “You’re right. I couldn’t really do it. But I almost wish I could.”

“What’s gotten into you, Cassian Andor?” she said.

“Everything’s different now. Before… I always knew I was going to die in this war, and I didn’t really care. The fight was the only thing that mattered.” He trailed off into silence.

“And now you want to live?” she asked, after a moment.

He didn’t answer at first, frowning up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess that’s it.”

“That’s a lot of responsibility to give me,” she said. “I don’t want to be the reason you want to live.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because _I_ want you to live, too,” she said. “Even if something happens to me.”

“So convince me to leave,” he said, and he sounded almost serious.

She kissed his forehead. “Where would we go?”

“I don’t really care,” he said. “Wherever you want.”

“I don’t know,” she said. What would feel safe? What would feel like home? She thought about where she and her parents had lived when she was a child, before her father was taken away and her mother killed. She had been too little to remember much about it, but she remembered that it was always cool and rainy. They’d had a little house, and they’d been so snug and comfortable there. She’d liked to run and play in the muddy, wet fields. It had been lonely, in a way; there had been no other children there so she had played alone, or with her parents. But it was the last place she’d ever felt safe. She didn’t know the name of the planet, and didn’t know how she could ever find it. But if she could, that’s where she would want to go.

“Somewhere where it rains a lot,” she said at last. 

“Why rain?”

“I like rain,” she said. “I never really had a home, but the closest I ever got to one was a rainy place. But I don’t know where it was. What was it like where you grew up? Did it rain there?”

“No,” he said. “It snowed.”

“All the time?”

“Most of the time. It’s not a very nice place. I wouldn’t want to bring you there.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just not a nice place,” he said. “Everything got bombed into rubble during the Clone Wars and never rebuilt, and everyone there is sick, or starving, or both.” 

There was no obvious emotion in his voice, but she was beginning to recognize the more subtle inflections and she hugged him a little closer. “You miss it, though,” she said. “Don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.” He was quiet for a moment. She had the sense that there was more that he wanted to say, or was considering saying, but she didn’t want to push him. Whenever she pushed, he closed back up, but if she let it breathe, sometimes he’d go on. 

After a while, hesitantly, he said, “when I was a kid, the whole reason I got into this fight, it was supposed to be for home. My father…” he trailed off. She watched him as he stared up at the ceiling. “He hated the Republic,” he said at last. “He wanted us to be independent. Now… The Alliance to Restore the Republic, that’s what they call themselves. What we call ourselves. I’m trying to restore the Republic whose bombs destroyed our house, killed my mother. It got worse when it became the Empire, but it was already pretty bad. I’ll probably never go home again.” He’d closed his eyes as he spoke, the way he did when he was saying something that was hard to say.

“You could,” she said gently. “We could. After we win the war, we could go.”

“No,” he said, not opening his eyes. “I don’t want you to go there. I don’t want you to see it.”

She could feel tears burning in her eyes. She wanted to ask him why: was he ashamed of where he was from? Did he think it would change how she felt about him? But he’d already revealed so much, and she knew how hard it was for him, so she didn’t say anything, just ran her fingertips along his skin and admired him. He really was beautiful.

“How’d you get this one?” she asked, tracing the shape of the jagged, white scar on his chest.

“Shrapnel,” he said. “It’s usually shrapnel. You ever try to build a bomb when it’s so cold that you can’t feel your fingers?”

“Once or twice,” she said.

“It’s a miracle any of them ever worked.” He rolled onto his side and gathered her up in his arms. “You’re nice and warm,” he said, and he kissed the back of her neck. “This one,” he said, kissing the scar on her shoulder, “looks like a blaster burn.”

“That’s right. Just clipped me.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve, I think. Why do you think they’re such bad shots?”

“The helmets. You can hardly see anything, and they’re pretty heavy.”

“How many times have you worn a stormtrooper helmet?” she asked.

“Once or twice.” She felt him smiling against her neck.

“I remember when I saw you in that officer’s uniform on Scarif, I thought, oh, he’s done this before.”

“I can’t confirm that,” he said, but he was laughing.

“You know what the dead giveaway was that you weren’t really one of them?”

“Nothing,” he said. “It was a perfect illusion.”

“No actual Imperial officer looks as good as you did.”

He kissed her shoulder again, smiling. “Oh really? Well, I got lucky the guy was my size. Imagine if he’d been tall.”

“Mm, I think you’d still look better than any of them,” she said. She took his hand in hers and studied it. There were little scars there, too; not very noticeable unless you looked closely, but there, a little map of his life laid out on his skin. “Your hands are always softer than I expect them to be,” she said.

“I’ve been pretending to be rich lately. So I have to have nice rich person hands.” 

“Did you just reveal something about your work to me?” she said, pretending to be horrified as she rolled back over so they were face to face.

“Nothing classified,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her. She let herself get wrapped up in him for a few minutes. What if they just never left this spot? Just lay here in this narrow bunk in this battered ship forever?

One of his fingers ran along the chain of her necklace, which was the only thing she was wearing. “How come you never take this off?” he asked.

She wasn't sure how to answer at first. “It’s just too precious,” she said. “It was my mother’s. I’d be afraid of something happening to it.”

“Can I look at it?” he asked, lifting the chain with a finger. She blushed, and nodded. There was something intensely intimate about it, about the way he asked permission first. He lifted the crystal up and ran his fingers along its facets, and it gave her goosebumps, as if it were her skin that he was touching. “It’s kyber crystal, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “The strongest stars have hearts of kyber,” she said. He cocked his head and looked at her, puzzled. “Something Chirrut said. I don’t know what it was supposed to mean, but I think about it a lot.”

“I’m sure it’s very wise,” said Cassian. “Whatever it means.” She laughed a little, and he let go of the crystal, letting it drop back down between her breasts, and kissed her again.

“What do you think you would be doing,” she asked, “if you weren’t doing this? I mean if the war had never happened?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t really remember anything from before the war. Probably the same thing all the poor kids on Fest do: work in the refineries or the mines until I got sick and died. But maybe not. My father was a teacher before the war. He probably would have tried to get me an education. If the war hadn’t happened, maybe that would have been possible. There used to be schools there.”

“Elaria told me you would have been a poet or something, because you’re secretly incredibly romantic.”

He laughed. “Elaria’s ridiculous. You shouldn’t listen to anything she says.”

“Well, that’s what I thought, and then you started talking about running away together, and now I’m not so sure.” She smiled. “I think she might be on to you, with the romance thing.”

“She has an overactive imagination and doesn’t know how to mind her own business,” said Cassian, but he was smiling.

“I know. I like her a lot.”

“That’s good,” he said, and she saw something on his face that made her think he’d thought of something that he wasn’t sure he wanted to say.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“What doesn’t bother me?”

“That she and I used to…” he didn’t finish the sentence. 

“No,” she said, truthfully. “It would bother me if you did it _now,_ but nothing that happened before I met you matters. I wasn’t exactly saving myself for you, you know,” she added, smiling as she moved in for another kiss. 

“That was just practice,” he said, smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for the nice comments you've been leaving on this story, they have made me very happy!


	5. General Andor

“Captain Andor,” said Mon Mothma. “Thank you for joining me. Please have a seat.”

He sat without saying anything. Eight hours ago he’d been offworld, working, when he’d received a message recalling him back to base. The moment he’d landed, someone had shoved a report into his hands and he’d been told to go directly to the chancellor’s office. Whatever this was about, it couldn’t be good.

“Are you aware of the recent action at the Mako-Ta Space Docks?” Mothma asked him.

He nodded, motioned with the data tablet he’d been handed when he stepped off his ship. “I’m not fully caught up,” he said. “I just got this two minutes ago.”

“Well, as you may know, we suffered very high casualties. Your commanding officer, General Davits Draven, was among them.”

“Yes ma’am.” He had gotten that far. 

She nodded. “As I said, our losses were quite significant. I’m afraid that leaves you as our ranking intelligence officer.”

_ What? _

“Ma’am?” he said, thinking he must be misunderstanding her.

“Welcome to High Command, General.” She set a badge on the desk between them, with five dots on it. He looked at it and then up at her. He’d never particularly cared about rank, but this seemed like a big jump.

_ "Me?" _ he said, shocked. Surely there had to be someone else.

The look Mothma gave him was kind, and a little sympathetic, but firm and steady. “I realize that this is… unexpected. However, you are by far the most experienced intelligence officer we have left. You are, of course, free to decline, but after careful consideration, it’s the opinion of the council that you are the best candidate to take over intelligence operations.”

He nodded. Of course he couldn’t really turn it down. There was no one else to take over.  _ How  _ was there no one else to take over? He had to do it.

Fuck.  _ He had to do it. _

“Of course,” he said. “I understand.”

“The council will be meeting tomorrow morning,” said Mothma. “I’m sure you’ll want to meet with your staff as soon as possible to prepare.” She stood and held out her hand, and he stood and took it.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, not sure what else to say.

“You really must call me Mon now,” she said.

He didn’t see that happening any time soon, but he nodded and turned to leave.

“General Andor,” she said. “You forgot something.” With a nod of her head, she indicated the general’s insignia. Uncomfortable, he picked it up, thanked her again, and left.

In the corridor he took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. His pulse was elevated and he was clenching his jaw and his hands. Head of Intel?  _ General? _ How in the hell did this happen?

If he was in charge now, that meant no more field work. It meant staying on base and deciding who to send into which dangerous situations. And going to interminable council meetings where everyone argued and complained and hardly anything ever got done. He’d always hated meeting with the council. Now he was on it.

How the fuck did  _ all _ of his superiors end up dead?

There was no point in wishing that things were other than what they were. He would just have to make the best of it. 

He really didn’t want to do this.

He was so distracted that when the princess, who must have been lying in wait for him, popped out from behind the next corner, he jumped and reached for his blaster without thinking.

“Wow,” said Leia. “You’re even more tense than usual, Andor. What’s wrong?” 

“Did you know about this?” he asked her.

“Of course I knew about this,” she said. “I voted for you.” The princess had taken her father’s place on the council a few months earlier, at Mon Mothma’s insistence. There had been some grumbling about it because she was so young, but people still had enough awe and reverence for the late Bail Organa, who had personally cobbled the fractious rebels into an alliance, that Mothma got her way.

“You could have warned me,” he said. “Or asked my opinion, at least.” 

“How could I warn you?” she asked. “You just got here. You’re the best candidate, and everyone knows you should have been promoted ages ago anyway.”

He nodded, not really listening. The door of the office that used to be Draven’s was now in view, and he was going to have to go inside and then he was going to have to actually  _ be _ head of Intel, somehow. “Hey,” said the princess. “This is a good thing, Cassian.”

“For who?” he asked.

“For the Alliance, and for me,” said Leia. “I’m looking forward to having someone on the council who takes me seriously.”

“Who says I take you seriously?”

“Don’t flirt with me, General,” she said firmly, “or I’ll tell your girlfriend.”

He couldn’t help smiling. “If you can find her.”

“They’re landing in two hours,” she said, with a satisfied smile, pleased to know something he didn’t.

“Says who?” he asked.

“Says Madine. So there.”

“Shit,” he said. “I have to meet with Intel.”

“They’ll be debriefing with Madine for ages anyway,” said Leia, following him into the office. “You know how thorough he is. Can I come to your briefing?”

“No,” he said.

“I’ll be really helpful,” she said. “You know I will.”

“Maybe next time, Princess,” he said. “I think I better do this one alone.”

“You need to put the insignia on,” she said. “Before you meet with them.”

“I hate the fucking insignia,” he grumbled.

“Symbols are important, Cassian,” she told him, gently scolding. “Where’s the badge?”

It was crumpled up in his hand. She shook her head. “Give it here. And the jacket.” 

“Should you be bossing a general around so much?” he asked, shrugging out of his jacket and handing it over.

“A princess can boss around anyone she wants,” she said, pulling the old captain’s insignia off the collar of his jacket and replacing it with the new one. “And I thought I told you to stop flirting with me. There you go. Put it on.” She stood back and looked at him with her hand on her hip. “Now stand up straight and try to look like you know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t think I  _ do _ know what I’m doing,” he confessed.

“That’s okay,” she said. She sat on the edge of Draven’s desk. Cassian’s desk. “My dad told me that nobody really knows what they’re doing. You just do the best you can.”

“And when you fuck up, you get people killed,” said Cassian.

“Yeah.” She looked at her feet. “But you just have to keep trying anyway.” There was a wistfulness in her voice. She almost never brought up her parents, although other people talked about her father all the time. “Well,” she said, hopping off the desk, “I guess since you won’t let me help, I’ll leave you to get to work. You and Jyn should come have a drink tonight with me and Luke and Han.”

“You’re still hanging around with that guy?”

She shrugged. “He’s not so bad. At least not all the time. Come see for yourself. When he sees you with Jyn he’ll know he doesn’t need to be jealous.”

“He shouldn’t be jealous in the first place,” Cassian objected. “And even if he is, it doesn’t excuse his behavior.”

“It’s none of your business,” said Leia, haughty. “We’re friends. Sort of. At least he doesn’t treat me like a little girl. If I can stand up to Darth Vader, I think I can handle Han Solo.”

“All right,” he said. 

“So you’ll come tonight?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll think about it.”

“No you won’t, you liar.” She shook her head. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning in council, General.”

* * * * *

He spent hours going through every last bit of data that Draven had left behind, and then met with all the Intel officers who were on the base. It went fine, but the weight of the responsibility was already exhausting.

Afterward he went to his ship. He supposed he would be getting permanent quarters here now. Probably Draven’s old ones. Maybe a general’s room would have enough room for Jyn so they could sleep next to each other without constantly waking each other up. The ship wouldn’t be his anymore; it belonged to the Alliance, not to him, and he wouldn’t need it now, because he wouldn’t be going anywhere.

He was lying down, eyes closed but still awake, when he heard her knocking at his door and a wave of relief went through him. “Come in,” he called, dragging himself upright. “Jyn?”

“Hey.” There she was, in his doorway, smiling shyly. “You’re in bed already, huh?”

“Long day,” he said, reaching a hand out to her. “Hi.” She took his hand and he pulled her gently toward him. She sat beside him on the bunk and he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, breathing her in. “Hi,” he said again.

“Hi.” She smiled, and then kissed him, and he let himself recline back with her on top of him, content to be here with her.

“You all right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m just tired. It’s been a really weird day.”

“Mm, just tell me you’re not going out on assignment right away,” she said, gently kissing his neck. 

“I’m not,” he said. “I sort of got a promotion.”

“You ‘sort of’ got a promotion, or you got a promotion?”

He sighed. “Draven got himself killed, and I’m the new him.”

“What, head of Intel?” She drew back and looked at him with big eyes.

“Yeah.”

“Wow,” she said. “When did this happen?”

“A couple of hours ago,” he said.

“No wonder you look so exhausted,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“You want to take a nap?” she asked, teasing.

“I just want to be with you,” he said, brushing her hair back off her face. “I don’t care what we do.”

She smiled. “A rest does sound really nice, actually. Those debriefs always take forever.” She squeezed herself between him and the wall, resting her head on his shoulder. He let his eyes fall closed. Maybe his new job wouldn’t be so bad, if he’d get to see her more often. “So do I have to call you ‘sir’ now?” she asked.

He smiled sleepily. “You didn’t before. I already outranked you.”

“Hm,” she said, and then she put her mouth against his ear and her hand on his thigh and whispered, “what if I  _ want _ to call you ‘sir?’” Her hand crept up a little further and even in his exhausted state, he felt himself stirring.

“Bad girl,” he said. “Aren’t you?”

“Mm-hmm,” said Jyn. “If you say so, sir.” She stretched out on top of him again and kissed his neck, and he made a pleased little sound and let his head fall back and pressed his hips up into her so she could feel how hard she’d gotten him. She ground down against him. “Cassian,” she breathed. He loved hearing her say his name like that.

“What do you need?” he asked. “What does this bad girl need? Does she need me to fuck her? Is that what she needs?”

She groaned out a yes, and he said, “yes, what?”

“Yes, sir,” she gasped, and she had her hand down her pants and was touching herself and he just lay back and watched her do that for a little while. 

“Take off your clothes,” he told her, and she looked at him with a challenge in her eyes.

“Is that an order,  _ sir?” _

“Are you going to make me say it again?” 

She stood up, and slowly undressed, not taking her eyes off of his face the whole time. “Now what?” she said, all wide eyed innocence.

“Now you take my clothes off,” he said. “And then I’m just going to lie right here and you do whatever you want.”

* * * * *

“Well shit,” said Cassian. “If I knew you’d like it that much, I’d have tried to get promoted earlier.” She laughed and snuggled up under his arm. He yawned and tried to pull her closer.

“Poor thing,” she said. “I told you to get some rest and then I attacked you.”

“Mmm-hmm,” he said. “Bad girl.” He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes open. “How was the mission?” he asked.

“We all came back alive,” she said, and he kissed the top of her head.

“Good,” he murmured. 

“Go to sleep, Cassian,” she said.

For a moment, as he was drifting off, he indulged himself in a fantasy that they weren’t here at all; that they really had run away like he’d semi-seriously proposed they do a few months ago; that they were in their own little home somewhere, anywhere, just the two of them, safe.


	6. I thought you knew everything

People never stopped complaining about Hoth. It was too cold, it was too remote, it was miserable. Cassian didn’t really see the big deal. It _was_ cold, that was true. If you happened to get caught outside after the sun went down, without any shelter, you’d freeze to death in an hour or so. But nobody should be going outside without a portable shelter in the first place. They were small and light, easy to carry. And comfortable enough to sleep in, if you dug it into a snowbank for insulation.

It was much colder here than it was on Fest, and where Fest was heavily industrialized, Hoth was an empty wasteland, but it still felt a little homelike, just to see snow and ice again, and to feel his fingers getting numb inside his gloves. The snow at home didn’t look like this: the Festian air was so polluted, the snow that fell looked dingy and gray. Here everything was white; blinding white; so white that when the sun hit it, you couldn’t even look at it, it was so bright.

He liked the bitter coldness here. It was easier to think in the cold. So when he was working on something particularly thorny, he liked to go outside, when the sun was high and it was as warm as it ever got here, which wasn’t very. He’d hike off through the snow until he couldn’t see the base anymore, and he knew he couldn’t be seen, and then he’d just stand there and look at it, and let his mind go blank and let the answer come to him.

What was bothering him right now was Darth Vader. Before Scarif and Yavin, Vader had been a kind of shadow, a phantom, more of a rumor than a real man. He’d appear once in a while to commit a massacre and then disappear again. But now Vader was everywhere, and according to Cassian’s informants, he was hunting Luke Skywalker. Why?

Here was the question: who the hell was Darth Vader? Nobody seemed to know, which was the strangest thing. When he first started thinking about it, he asked Mon Mothma, and she said that nobody really knew; that Darth Vader had simply appeared, shortly after Palpatine declared himself Emperor. But that didn’t make sense. People, or monsters, don’t just come out of nowhere. He had to have existed. 

Cassian had a man on Vader’s ship. He hated putting one of his men in that position; the Executor was well known as the most dangerous assignment in the Imperial navy. Vader had a habit of killing his officers when he was unhappy, and he was never happy. But he needed the intel. Vader was hunting Skywalker, and if he found him, they were all in big trouble. 

* * * * *

“Anyway,” said Leia, “I really don’t think you need to worry about that. I can take care of it.”

“I know you can,” he replied, absently. They were sitting on the floor of his office, going over the plan for Leia’s next trip offworld. She was being sent to charm some money out of wealthy people who had been convinced to support the Rebellion in secret before. Leia was preternaturally good at this; no one could ever say no to her for long.

“Hey,” she said. “What’s wrong?” Leia was the person he talked to when he was trying to work something out. She was on the council and had clearance, so he _could_ talk to her. She was the only person who knew about Vader and Skywalker, besides himself and the agent who’d told him about it. 

Even when Jyn was here, he wasn’t allowed to talk to her about the things that were bothering him, because she wasn’t cleared for it. He trusted her absolutely; more than anyone, but rules were rules. If he found out someone on his team was sharing classified information with someone who wasn’t supposed to have it, they wouldn’t be working in Intel anymore, and he had to hold himself to the same standard. So it was only Leia he could talk to.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just trying to figure something out.”

She put her hand over his, surprising him. “You know you can tell me,” she said.

“When there’s something to tell, I might,” he told her. She smiled and leaned in a little closer to him. A little too close. He shifted away from her, took his hand out from under hers. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Don’t you know?” she asked. “I thought you knew everything.” She was looking up at him now with an expression that he recognized, an expression he’d seen on her face before, but not in a long time. Not since Jyn.

“Don’t,” he said, pulling his hand away. “Please.”

“Cassian, I’m in love with you.” She took his hand again.

Well, shit. He stood up, retreated back behind his desk. She stayed where she was, looking up at him. “Say something,” she said.

“What do you expect me to say? You know that Jyn and I—” 

“When was the last time you saw her?” she asked. “When was the last time you even _spoke_ to her, Cassian?”

“It’s been a while,” he said. It had been fourteen weeks. Before that it had been five. Before that it had been twelve. “But that doesn’t change anything.”

“Doesn’t it?” She got to her feet and approached him again, standing in front of him. “I’m _right here,_ Cassian. I’m right here, and I love you, and I know you have feelings for me, too. Don’t deny it. This could be _so good,_ and you know it. The only reason we didn’t get together before is you thought I was too young, and I’m not a kid anymore.”

He shook his head. Even in the Hoth cold, he felt uncomfortably warm. She went up on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his and he just stood there stupidly for a moment, and then took a step back.

The worst part was that he really did want her, or at least his body did. Back before Jyn, he had sex whenever he felt like it, and now he went months without being touched. Without touching anyone. It would be so easy to give in, give her what she wanted, to let this beautiful girl love him. It _would_ be good; it would feel good and be so easy and he wanted it, and he hated that he did.

“I love her,” he said. “Don’t ask me to betray the woman I love.”

She stepped back. “Fine,” she said. “Forget it.” And she swept out of the room.

* * * * *

Just like that, Cassian lost his only friend. She was cool and professional with him now, only spoke to him about official business, and always called him “General.”

He was lonelier than ever. He had no one to bounce ideas off, no one to talk through the things he was trying to piece together. He hadn’t realized how much he’d come to rely on her, how much he’d enjoyed their time together. 

Had he misled her by spending so much time together, letting himself get close to her? But she knew about Jyn. Granted, he didn’t talk much about Jyn when they were together. It was too personal, too painful. And it seemed to him that it went without saying. Maybe that had been misleading.

There was no word from Jyn or the Pathfinders. He was pretty sure his operative on the Executor was dead. If not dead, captured, and that was worse. Vader was still looking for Skywalker, and he still hadn’t figured out why.

He was tired. He was lonely. He missed Jyn, like always, but it was worse now.


	7. I'll always come back to you

Debriefing with Madine always took hours. He wanted to hear every detail of what they’d done, what they’d seen, what they’d heard. Cassian was always there, too, standing in the back of the room with his arms crossed and his brow furrowed. Draven usually hadn’t attended their debriefs and had relied on the after action reports, but Cassian wanted to hear everything for himself, although he rarely asked followup questions. Instead he would summon anyone he wanted to follow up with to his office the next day.

They had to try to ignore each other in these debriefs, which she assumed was why he always stood at the back of the room, so she couldn’t see him and he wouldn’t feel her eyes on him. If she could see him, she knew, she wouldn’t be able to look at anything else. It was hard enough to focus just knowing he was nearby.

Every time they were reunited it was like this. As soon as they could get each other alone, as soon as they could find even ten minutes to be together, they fell on each other, desperately hungry for the other’s touch.

It was always cold here, but in the bunk, under the blankets, skin to skin, it was warm and beautiful and good. When he tried to roll off of her, she held him where he was. She liked the weight of his body on hers; how small it made her feel, and how safe. “Don’t go,” she said. “Stay right there.”

He touched her hair, tucked it back off of her face. “I was going to say the same thing to you,” he said, and he kissed her face gently. “I’m not crushing you?”

“I like it,” she said. “It feels good.”

“Jyn,” he said. “I mean it. Would you… if I asked you to, would you stay here?”

She was surprised, and not sure how to answer. “You mean stay on base?”

“I mean stay with me,” he said softly. “Would you? If I asked?” He pressed his face into her neck so she couldn’t see him.

She took a breath. It had been three years of this: stealing a few days together, maybe a week, then long weeks and months with no contact at all. 

_“Are_ you asking?” she said, in a small voice. Cassian so rarely asked her for anything, as if it embarrassed him to need anything from her, to want anything. As if he were ashamed of it.

“No,” he said, quietly, but she knew that he was. “It’s not fair for me to ask. I know it’s not.”

“Cassian, I _want_ you to ask me for things. I just… can’t say yes, this time. I wish I could.”

She’d never wanted to be a rebel. She’d never asked for any of this, had been dropped in the middle of it when the Pathfinders broke her out of that prison transport three years ago. But it had come to mean so much to her, and it was Cassian who had given her that. It was Cassian’s fire which had lit something inside of her, back on Jedha, or when they had that catastrophic fight on the stolen shuttle on the way back from Eadu. It didn’t make sense to fall in love with someone while they were yelling at you, but he had cared _so much_ about what they were doing, about this cause he’d devoted his life to when he was so young he hadn’t really had a choice.

When she thought about that fight now, it seemed obvious that they were already starting to fall for each other, although she’d never have suspected it at the time. But she wouldn’t have been so furious with him if she hadn’t started to trust him, and he never could have disobeyed that order if he hadn’t started to care about her. When she remembered how his face had looked and his voice had sounded, she knew that he hadn’t been angry at _her,_ he was angry at himself, and his orders, and the whole fucked up situation, and worst of all, the fact that he was falling in love with her, which she knew now was the most terrifying thing that had happened to him in years.

Why _not_ transfer out of Pathfinders and do something on base, so they could be together? Why not? But she wasn’t needed here the same way. Nothing she could do here would be as valuable as what she could do out there. “I can’t,” she said again.

“I know,” he said. “Just every time you leave it gets harder to say goodbye to you, and I’m afraid that one of these times you’re not going to come back.”

“I’ll always come back to you,” she said. 

“You don’t know that,” he said.

“Yes, I do. There’s nothing that could keep me from coming back to you. Nothing.”

He didn’t say the thing she knew he was thinking, just let out a long, sad sigh. For a moment she almost thought that he was going to cry, which was something she’d still never seen him do, but of course he didn’t.

“Do you know my friend Kes?” she asked him.

“Dameron?”

“Yeah, Kes. He has a kid, did you know that? A son. He’s just over a year old. His mother’s a pilot. Shara Bey. They got married, I think, when they had Poe. They never see each other. Even less than we do. Kes has only seen his son once or twice since he was born; he lives with Shara’s parents. But he’s not quitting. I can’t quit, either. I just can’t. I’m sorry. I love you more than anything. But I have to see it through to the end. I just have to.”

He was quiet for a long, long moment, and then at last he said, “I know,” very quietly. 

“Someday the war will be over,” she said.

“The war’s been going on for our entire lives,” he said.

“But someday it’ll be over,” she said. “It will, Cassian. Rebellions are built on hope, remember?”

“I remember.”

“Do you still believe that?”

“It’s not something you believe or don’t believe,” he said. “It’s just a fact.”

“So, have some hope. Someday the war will be over and then…”

“Then we’ll go find some place where it rains a lot?” he said.

“Exactly,” she said.

“If we’re still alive.”

“So, let’s stay alive.”

“Oh,” he said. “I hadn’t thought of that.” He bit her very gently at the place where her neck met her shoulder and it sent a delicious sensation through her body. “And what will we do on this rainy planet when the war is over?”

“Mm, a lot of this, I hope,” she answered, trailing her fingers up and then down his back, right along his spine. He shivered, kissed her slowly, and she couldn't resist lifting her hips up into his. "Cassian," she breathed. 

"Jyn," he whispered against her ear, and his fingers found her again, gently, slowly, taking his time like he loved to do. "Jyn," he said again, and then he started talking to her in Festian, which he did sometimes when he was really getting into it. She'd asked him once what he was saying and he'd given her a mischievous look and told her, "really, really filthy stuff," but refused to elaborate. She rolled her head back and moaned, and then Cassian’s comm buzzed.

“Damn it,” he groaned. “No.” He flipped it on. “Yeah?”

“You’re needed in the command center right away,” was the response.

He sighed. “On my way.” He turned it off and then kissed Jyn again. “I’ll be back,” he said. “Keep going without me.”


	8. the droid

The sensors had picked something up that shouldn’t have been there. Something moving. Something transmitting a code none of them recognized.

Solo wanted to go check it out, but Cassian shook his head. “That’s an Imperial probe droid looking for us.”

“How the hell do you know?” asked Solo, who had been even unfriendlier to Cassian than usual recently.

“I know,” he said. His contact on the Executor had said that Vader was using droids like these. What else could it be? “You get on that droid’s sensors, I guarantee you, Darth Vader will know about it.”

“So what do you suggest?” said Rieekan.

“Sit tight for the time being. These droids are cheap; it’s not going to keep functioning long in this environment.”

“Seems like it’s doing okay now,” muttered Solo.

“Its sensors and transmitter will ice over,” said Cassian. “Once it stops transmitting, we can pick it up and get some answers. If I’m wrong, no harm done. If I’m right, we’ll have saved ourselves a lot of trouble.”

“Screw it,” said Solo. “Come on Chewie, let’s go check it out.”

“General,” said Cassian to Rieekan. “It’s a bad idea.”

“Wait a minute, Solo,” said Rieekan. “We’ll do as General Andor recommends for now.”

“What if our own sensors ice over and we don’t know when the transmission stops?” asked Leia.

“Didn’t we just replace those a few days ago?”

“Yeah,” said Solo. “Me and Luke did it.”

“And they’re working now. I think they’ll hold up better than the droid. My sources say they’re sending those things out by the thousands; they’re not well made.”

“All right,” said Rieekan. “We’ll hold tight for now. But I want this base ready to be evacuated at a moment’s notice.”

* * * * *

“So can you tell me what’s going on?” asked Jyn. “Are we evacuating or not?”

“Not,” said Cassian. He wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, dropped a little kiss on her neck.

“But maybe?”

“Rieekan has an abundance of caution,” he said.

“I know,” said Jyn. “I shouldn’t be so happy that the energy shield’s down, should I? But since he won’t let us leave until it’s back up and running… I have to admit I don’t mind so much.”

“Neither do I,” he said.

“So you can’t tell me _why_ we might have to evac?” she asked. “Or why no one’s allowed to go outside? Even if I promise not to say anything?”

She was playing with him. She knew he’d never tell her anything she wasn’t authorized to know. This was only a game. 

“You’re a smart girl, Sergeant Erso,” he said. “You can probably figure it out on your own.” He sighed. “Speaking of, I have to get back to the command center.”

“No time for Jyn,” she said, smiling at him, and he felt his heart twist in his chest, agonizing. How much longer until she left again?

“Don’t say that,” he whispered. Don’t say that when you’re the one who keeps leaving, he thought.

“I’m only kidding,” she said, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “I love you. Go back to work, General. I’ve got work to do, too.”

* * * * *

Back in the command center, he kept a close eye on the readings. The transmission was getting weaker and weaker as the temperature dropped. A few hours more and the droid would be dead.

Leia came up behind him. “Why are they sending these out by the thousands?” she asked. “For Luke?”

“Be quiet,” he said in a low voice. “That’s not common knowledge.”

She nodded. “Sorry.” She sat down next to him and listened to the code. “It keeps transmitting the same thing,” she said. “What do you think it means?”

“It probably doesn’t mean anything,” he said, “at least not in words. Just transmitting the same thing over and over so they know that it’s functioning. If it sees something, it’ll transmit something else.”

She nodded. “That makes sense. So we’ll know if it does see something, won’t we?”

He glanced at her, feeling a wave of relief that she was talking to him again. “Hopefully. Then we’ll know we need to evac.”

“If Han had gone out there like he wanted to, we’d be screwed, wouldn’t we?”

“No way to know for sure,” he said.

“He can be a real idiot sometimes,” she said. “We never should have given him a medal. It went to his head.” She paused a moment and then said, “Cassian, I’m sorry.”

“For giving Solo a medal? That wasn’t your decision.”

“No,” she said. “You know why. I was being selfish and shitty and I’m sorry.”

“You’re forgiven,” he said. “Does that mean we’re friends again?”

“Always,” she said, and he smiled at her.

“What the fuck,” he muttered, looking at the readings.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Someone’s out there. Damn it, fuck, who the fuck—”

“It’s Han,” she said. “I bet you anything it’s him.”

Cassian hit the comm. “Solo, is that you?”

“I’m just checking it out.”

“Get the fuck back to base right now,” said Cassian. He was going to fucking strangle him when he got back.

“Don’t worry,” said Solo.

“Are you listening to me? Get back to base, that thing is still—”

The transmission changed, and then suddenly stopped.

“Call Rieekan,” said Cassian. “We’re evacuating.”

* * * * *

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Cassian shouted. He was starting to understand why Draven had been so pissed at him after Scarif. “I fucking told you—”

“Well, somebody had to check it out.”

“No,” said Cassian. “Nobody had to check it out! Do you understand what you’ve done here? It took us three years to find this place and get established here, and now we have to leave. Do _you_ have a plan for where we’re going to go now? Or are you still planning on fucking off?”

“I don’t need to listen to this shit,” said Solo.

“General Andor, there’s a message coming in for you,” said the young man at the comm station.

Please be good news, he thought, already knowing that it wasn’t. It was from his agent on the Executor, who was still alive after all, although he wouldn’t be much longer, and it was very brief, and very bad: _Six star destroyers en route to Hoth._

That couldn’t be right. Six star destroyers? To follow up on that probe droid? “I need to talk to Rieekan,” he said. “Right now. And we need to get everything off of these computers and then destroy them. Now!”


	9. more bad news

Eight weeks after the chaotic, mostly successful evacuation of Hoth, Cassian got more bad news. Everything was bad news these days, but this was even worse than usual.

Mothma, Rieekan, and he were the only members of Command on this ship, so it was Mothma and Rieekan he went to with his bad news.

“I have bad news,” he said.

“How bad?” asked Mothma.

“The Empire is working on some big construction project,” he said. “And they’re mining kyber crystal again.”

Mothma closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I see.”

“You think they’re trying to rebuild the Death Star?” asked Rieekan.

“I think it’s safe to say they’re building a weapon,” said Cassian. “Similar to the Death Star. It won’t be the same; they’ll have to have redesigned it. I don’t think anyone who helped design the first one is still alive; they all got killed at Eadu.”

“And as far as we know, we have the only copy of the schematics?” said Mothma.

“As far as we know. But they wouldn’t want to use the same design anyway. No way of knowing if Galen left any other traps for them in it.”

“Ideas?” said Mothma.

The three of them looked at each other and no one spoke for a moment.

“I’ll keep digging,” said Cassian.

“We’ll need to get our hands on the schematics for it,” said Mothma. “And hope we can… hope there’s something we can do. How long do you think we have?”

“It’s hard to say,” said Cassian. “With what I know right now. It took them a long time to build the first one. But the first one was sort of experimental; there was no way to know if it would work, so it wasn’t a very high priority.”

“And this one is.”

“This one is.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s all I know right now,” he said. “I’ll let you know what else I find.” He turned to go.

“Cassian,” said Mothma. “Is there… any word on the princess?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. I think… I think at this point we have to assume that she’s dead.”

Mothma closed her eyes again, sank down into a chair with her head in her hands, and Rieekan took a deep breath.

“You’re sure?” said Rieekan. “She could have been captured.”

Cassian shook his head again. “If the Empire had her, we’d know about it. They’d _want_ us to know about it. They’d have her on the Holonet by now, reading some statement denouncing us, or…” He found he needed to sit down, himself. He’d thought about it a lot. If Leia wasn’t dead, Solo had probably kidnapped her and run off to some shithole planet so he could… well, it didn’t bear thinking about what he’d do with her there. 

Everyone in this room loved that girl. Mothma had known her since she was a baby. Rieekan was from Alderaan. They both loved her like family, and almost nobody in this organization had any family left. Certainly no one at their level.

“I can’t keep looking for her,” he said. “There’s too much going on and too many lives at stake.” 

“Of course,” said Mothma. “Of course you’re right. Thank you for looking as long as you have.” She took another deep breath, and the cool, collected mask that was Chancellor Mothma fell back over her face. “Thank you, gentlemen,” she said. “I think it’s time we get back to work.”

* * * * *

“Everything okay?” said Jyn.

“No,” he said. “Nothing’s okay.” He let himself drop into the little bunk of the room they’d been sharing, and he put his arm over his eyes to block the light. “Except you’re here. So one thing is okay.”

“And I love you,” said Jyn. “So that’s two.” She sat down next to him and stroked his hair. It felt nice. He sighed deeply. “I wish you could talk to me,” she said.

“So do I,” he said. “Have I ever mentioned how much I hate being in charge?”

“Once or twice. Have you eaten anything today?”

_Had_ he eaten anything today? “I don’t know,” he said miserably. “I don’t feel hungry.”

“That’s because you’re so stressed out,” she said. “If I go get you something, will you eat it?” 

“I don’t want you to go anywhere,” he said. “Can you just stay here a little while longer?”

“I can stay here as long as you want,” she told him. “If you promise to close your eyes and sleep for a while.”

“I can’t. I have too much to do.” He had to stop this fucking weapon. He had to figure out what it _was_ so he could figure out _how_ to stop it. But this time they didn’t have an ally on the inside. They hadn’t known that Galen Erso was their ally until it was too late, but they’d had him. Now who did he have?

Jyn got up, sat on the floor, and started unlacing his boots. “You’ve got to get some rest,” she said firmly. “You can’t do your work if you’re exhausted.”

She was right, of course. “You’re right,” he said. “You’re always right.”

She tugged his boots off and then lifted his feet up onto the bunk with the rest of him. “I’m turning the light off,” she told him. “And you’re going to sleep. Say you understand.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said. He really was exhausted. He felt old. Old and tired. He felt Jyn sit down next to him again and her hand touched his hair. He sighed again. “Thank you,” he said. “I’d be such a mess if you weren’t here.”

“Sweetheart, you _are_ a mess,” said Jyn, and he laughed for the first time in weeks.

“I love you,” he mumbled.

“I know you do, honey. Go to sleep.”


	10. el arma

Jyn was really worried about Cassian. Things were bad. The fleet was spread out, trying to hide, but ships were being picked off one by one. Nobody was doing great, but Cassian was in especially bad shape, which meant things were even worse than anyone knew.

Jyn had nothing to do except worry about Cassian; with the fleet focused entirely on defense and hiding, there was no mission for the Pathfinders right now. She helped with routine tasks around the ship, and if they were attacked and boarded, she would be at the front of the defense, but that was unlikely. The Empire had been destroying their ships. Nobody had been boarded, as far as she knew.

So mostly she worried about Cassian and tried to take care of him, and meanwhile he got gaunter and more haunted, and she worried about him more.

He couldn’t tell her anything. She had considered trying to apply for a security clearance that would let him talk to her, but she doubted that “I’m worried about my lover” would be considered a valid reason to get top clearance.

He’d finally fallen asleep, and was mumbling. He’d been doing that lately, talking to himself in Festian while he slept. “El arma,” he said. “El arma.” 

She frowned. She’d learned a little Festian from Elaria, and she was pretty sure “el arma” meant “the weapon.” It might not mean anything much; they were fighting a war, of course he was thinking about weapons. But it bothered her. 

Or maybe she’d misheard him. Maybe he’d said Elaria’s name. Elaria had died in the assault on Hoth. He hadn’t really mentioned it, but it must be weighing on him. They’d grown up together, had been friends and occasional lovers, and she was the only person left in his life from that home he never planned to go back to.

 _She_ missed Elaria, who had instantly adopted her as a friend and sister, and had been openly, wildly delighted that Cassian had actually gotten serious with someone.

He went on mumbling, shifting around in the bunk, so restless even while he was sleeping, and then she thought, could have sworn, that she heard her father’s name.

But that couldn’t be right. Why would Cassian say her father’s name in his sleep? El arma. The weapon. She felt a little sick. She shouldn’t be speculating; she had no way of knowing. Maybe he was just remembering how this all started. Or maybe… 

Maybe there was a new weapon like the one her father had helped build. But this time without her father there to sabotage it. 

Get ahold of yourself, she told herself firmly. There’s no point in speculating about any of this. If you need to know, they’ll tell you. 

But it would certainly explain what was happening to Cassian.

“Jyn,” he called out. “Jyn, help.”

Aching and feeling helpless, she sat down next to him. “It’s okay, Cassian,” she said. “I’m right here.”

It seemed to calm him down. “Jyn,” he said again, quietly.

“Shh,” she murmured. “Shh. Sleep. You’re safe.”

“Safe,” he echoed, and then he was finally quiet and still.


	11. everything is completely fucked

“Everything,” said Leia, “is completely fucked.” After twelve weeks, the princess had simply reappeared, in the Millennium Falcon, along with a half-dead Luke Skywalker, a stranger that she’d had sent to the brig, Chewbacca, and her droids. Solo wasn’t with her. She looked like she’d been through the wringer, but she was upright and as self-assured as ever.

She had a wild story to explain where she’d been, but she had no explanation for Skywalker. “I thought he was with the fleet,” she said. “He wasn’t?”

Cassian shook his head. “No. You were all MIA.”

“Well, you’ll have to ask him. Assuming he wakes up.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“Maybe.” She sighed. “How long was I gone?”

“About twelve weeks,” he told her.

“It felt like a year,” she said. “Have you ever flown through real space? I’ll never complain about hyperdrive travel again.”

“I’m so glad you’re alive,” said Cassian.

“Cassian Andor,” she said, “are you being sentimental? I really, truly never thought I’d see it!” She smiled at him sweetly, and then a more serious look settled over her face. “I think you should know, though, that Han and I… Well, I… Like I said, it was a long twelve weeks.” She blushed and looked down at her hands.

“Oh,” he said, surprised. Maybe he shouldn’t have been. Solo had been after Leia for years, but Leia had never shown any sign of being interested, unless you counted having loud and frequent arguments with someone as being interested. 

“I know you’re dying to make some little comment about the age difference,” she said defensively. “But just don’t, okay?”

“I won’t,” he said. “What are you going to do now, though?” Solo was gone. Caught by a bounty hunter and carried off back to Tatooine to pay what he owed, with his life if not in cash.

“I’m going to find him and rescue him, of course,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Luke and Chewie and I will do it.” She looked at him defiantly. “Go on and say whatever you’re going to say, General.”

“Good luck,” he said. “You do enough impossible stuff, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to do that.”

She smiled. “Thanks. I’m not expecting any help from the Alliance, and that includes you. This is a personal matter and I’m going to handle it myself. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get cleaned up and go see if Luke’s all right.” She stood up. “Oh, Cass, I’m an asshole, I didn’t even ask about Jyn. Is she okay?”

“She’s okay,” said Cassian.

“I’m so glad. I’m so sorry about before, I really am. I think I get it now.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “We’ve got bigger problems. Good luck, Princess. I hope you get him back.”

* * * * *

There was something about knowing that the princess had escaped from Darth Vader a second time that made the current situation seem a little less hopeless. The first time she got away from Vader, she’d brought the Death Star schematics, and then they’d destroyed it. If she could get away from him again, they could destroy the new weapon, couldn’t they?

The Empire was calling the new weapon the Death Star, too, and that also gave him a little hope. They’d destroyed the first Death Star. They could destroy a second one. Why not? Crazier things had happened.

They just had to figure out how to do it.

Looking at the schematics, which his people had miraculously managed to dig up without being detected, it was clear that they needed to move before construction was completed. Once the exterior was finished, there was no clear way to get to the reactor, and there was no way to destroy it without getting to the reactor.

So the council was arguing about what to do and when to do it.

“We have to make this attack as soon as possible,” said Ackbar. “There’s no other option. If they get the shell completed, we’ll never be able to gain access to the reactor core, and there’s no other way to guarantee destruction of the entire structure. We don’t have anything powerful enough to destroy something of that size from the outside.”

“If it’s not fully constructed, will the reactor even be operating?” asked Rieekan.

“Maybe not at full capacity,” said Cassian, “but they’ve got a crew on that thing, so they’ve got power coming from somewhere. The bigger problem is the defense shield.”

“That’ll be my problem, I expect,” said Madine. “If it’s being generated from the surface.”

It’ll be Jyn’s problem, Cassian thought. You’ll be up here with me doing nothing.

* * * * * 

Things seemed to be going smoothly all of a sudden, and that was making him uneasy. Was he being fed false intel? The Empire wasn’t usually subtle enough for that; when they caught spies, they tortured them to get as much information as they could and then they killed them. The Empire didn’t value subtlety, generally. 

The plan was coming together, slowly, and the council kept arguing while they tried to put it together, and then Cassian got the most shocking piece of intel he’d ever gotten. He didn’t even bring it to the council right away, because it  _ had _ to be false. But after getting it confirmed from multiple sources, he had no choice but to both believe it was true and bring it to the council. The Emperor was going to the Death Star himself.

“You’re certain about this?” said Mothma.

“I thought it had to be a lie,” he said, “but I’ve got multiple sources. It’s hard to believe, but I think it’s got a good chance of being accurate.”

“If the Emperor is on the Death Star, that’s a chance we can’t pass up,” said Ackbar. “We have to attack immediately. As soon as possible.”

“Is he there now?” asked Mothma.

“Word is he’s on his way.”

“We’d better start assembling the fleet,” said Rieekan.

* * * * *

“I don’t want you to go,” said Cassian. “Please don’t.”

“Cassian. We’ve been over this.”

“I know. I  _ know.” _ He kissed her. “But I still don’t want you to go.”

“Is there something you’re not telling me? Because the way Madine tells it, this is supposed to be a pretty simple mission. There’s just a small force on the surface, right? We’ve got access codes. We land, go find the bunker, blow it up. I can do that in my sleep. So what are you so nervous about?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “You’re right. It  _ is _ supposed to be pretty simple. Why isn’t it more heavily guarded? How did we get those access codes so easily? There’s something else going on and I don’t know what it is. I don’t like it, Jyn. I just really don’t like it at all and I don’t want you to go, and I know you’re going to go anyway, but I don’t want you to.”

“Oh Cassian,” she said, and she put her hands on his face and kissed him. “I love you, and you worry too much, and you know I’ll always come back to you.”

“What if you don’t?” he asked.

“I will. So don’t worry about things that aren’t going to happen. This could be it, couldn’t it? I mean… this could really be it. If we win this one, we might  _ win.” _

“We might.”

“So you want me to stay behind when this could be it?”

“I do. I really do.”

“I have to see it through, Cass. You know you’d do the same thing if it were the other way around.”

“I know,” he said. “I would.”

“Anyway,” said Jyn. “Let’s not waste time arguing about it.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in to her. “Why don’t you show me how much you’re going to miss me?” she whispered, and he kissed her as hard as he could, pushing her jacket down off of her shoulders and then breaking apart just long enough to pull her shirt up over her head, and he picked her up right off of her feet and tossed her onto their bunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is your last chance to back out before the tragic ending! Keep reading if you like being sad (personally I love being sad which is probably why my favorite Stars Wars are Rogue One and The Empire Strikes Back)


	12. after we win

They won. They almost didn’t. The intel _had_ been false, some of it. Just enough of it had been true that he hadn’t worked out which parts were lies. Something must have gone wrong on the surface, because the defense shield was still up when the fleet arrived, but it had gone down eventually, so something must have gone right, too. 

The weapon was destroyed. Two Death Stars down, he thought, grimly.

Had the Emperor really been aboard the station? There was no way to know; not yet. He’d find out eventually. If he _was…_ That changed the balance of power in the galaxy in a way that was impossible to predict at this point, but it meant they stood a real chance of actually winning the war. This really could be it, like Jyn had said.

The next day, ships started returning. Cassian went down to the hangar along with everyone else who was expecting someone they cared about to come back, and he lingered by the exit watching everyone hug and laugh and cry, but he didn’t see Jyn.

He did see Leia, hand in hand with Solo, and when he saw her see him, he knew, so he turned and walked away before he could react. He went to his room and he stared at the wall and he tried to convince himself that he was imagining it. Jyn was just on the next shuttle. She’d be here soon. She’d promised.

Maybe an hour later, there was a knock at the door, and please, let it be Jyn. Let it be Jyn. But Jyn wouldn’t knock, because this was her room, too. It was the princess.

“Cassian” she said.

“Go away,” he said.

“Cassian, let me in,” she said, in that voice she used when she wasn’t going to let you argue with her. 

He stepped away from the door and leaned against the wall for support, but he found himself slowly sinking to the floor. “She’s dead,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“I’m so sorry,” said Leia, and she sat down on the floor next to him. “It all happened so fast. They knew we were coming.”

“The intel was bad,” said Cassian. “I fucked up. I knew something was wrong. I should have—”

“No,” she said. “It’s not your fault.”

“Where is she?” he asked. “Is she still down there? Can I see her?”

“I don’t know,” said Leia. “I’ll find out.” She reached into her pocket. “I thought she would want you to have this,” she said gently. It was Jyn’s necklace. The kyber crystal necklace she always wore. She never took it off. It was too precious. But she wasn’t wearing it now. Now somewhere there was Jyn without her necklace. It was her mother’s necklace. Her mother had given it to her right before she died. On that rainy planet. He had been going to figure out what that rainy planet was, and they were going to go there, as soon as the war was over.

Cassian held out his hand and took the necklace. “Please go away,” he said. “Go away now, please.”

“I don’t think you should be alone,” she said.

“Go away,” he said again. “Just go away. Go celebrate. We won.” 

She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tightly and didn’t say anything, and he tried to pull out of her grasp, but he couldn’t and finally he just buried his face in her shoulder and started screaming. She rocked him back and forth and he poured out a stream of curses in both Festian and Basic, and he called her every cruel name he could think of in either language, but she never even loosened her hold on him.

* * * * *

Jyn was gone, and she wasn’t coming back. He walked around like a ghost, like it was he who was dead, feeling gutted and hollow and like he’d never take a full breath ever again.

But he had a lot of work to do, so he did that.

Leia kept trying to talk to him, and he avoided her as much as he could. He hated the pity in her eyes when she looked at him, and he _hated_ that she’d seen him lose it, been present for that most humiliating moment of his life in the immediate aftermath of Jyn’s death.

He considered taking up drinking; drinking himself to death. He tried it a few times but he still didn’t like it. He thought that drinking was supposed to help you deaden your feelings, but that must only be for people who hadn’t spent thirty years repressing every emotion they ever felt, because when he was drunk, he felt _more._

But that’s what he was doing when Leia came to his room, which is why he told her she could come in. “Hi Cassian,” said Leia in that voice he hated, the oh-you-poor-thing voice. “How are you?”

He looked up at her from where he was sitting on the floor. “Good,” he said. “Great.”

“You been drinking?” she said.

“Yeah, I thought I’d try it. That’s what people do, right? I don’t think I like it.”

She sat down next to him. “You don’t look so great, Cass,” she said.

“That’s okay, that’s okay,” he said. “I’m good, I’m really, I’m so good. What’s happening? Why are you here? We’re under attack?” He almost hoped they were.

“No,” she said. “No, we’re not under attack. There’s something I wanted to tell you. I’m getting married.”

He laughed. “To _who?”_

“To Han, of course. Who do you think?”

He laughed again. “You’re going to marry Solo?” He drank a little more. “Well that’s a terrible idea.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding surprised. “Why?”

“Why,” he said. “Why.” He repeated the word a few more times, just because it felt funny to say. 

“Yeah, why? Tell me.” 

“He doesn’t respect you. Don’t you remember, the first time I met him. Remember? You saw him come in the room and you froze. Like— like a little animal who saw a— saw— you were so scared of him.”

“I wasn’t scared of him,” she said.

“You were, you were, like a little animal—”

“I’m _not_ a little animal, Cassian,” she said, and she was getting angry now, he was making her angry, but that was better than her pitying him, so he kept going.

“Then what happens,” he said. “Then you fall in love because he’s got you hostage on his ship—”

“Hostage? What are you talking about?”

“The hyperdrive was _broken?”_

“The hyperdrive _was_ broken.”

“Solo was on his way out the door,” said Cassian. “Without a working hyperdrive? Bullshit.”

“You need to stop it,” she said. “I know this isn’t really about Han and it isn’t really about me, but what you’re implying is really ugly.”

“Not implying,” he said. “Not implying anything. I’m saying it. I’m _saying_ it. He’s not good. He’s not for you.”

She sighed. “I wanted to ask you if you’d come to my wedding,” she said. “That’s why I came. It would mean a lot to me if you did. But I understand if you don’t want to.” She stood up and took his bottle away. “Pull yourself together, General.”

He didn’t want to pull himself together. He just wanted to fucking die.

* * * * *

He did go. He didn’t want to go, but he did, because she’d asked him to. She looked lovely and happy in her blue dress, and she smiled and hugged him and thanked him for coming, and he left as soon as he could and went and sat alone in the dark and thought about killing himself, but he still had a job to do, so he didn’t.

Then they won the war. Someday, Jyn had said, the war would be over. One year after she died, one year to the day, some documents were signed and the Empire officially stopped existing.

Someday the war will be over, Jyn had said, and now it was.

He didn’t know what else to do, so when Mothma asked him to continue on as the head of intelligence for the New Republic, he agreed. It was the only thing he was any good at, so he might as well keep doing it. What else was he going to do, without Jyn?

What was the point of being alive, without Jyn?

“I don’t want to be the reason you want to live,” she’d told him. You were, though, he thought. You were. The best reason.

He thought a lot about killing himself. He thought about it almost every day. But then he would remember what she’d said next, that she wanted him to live even if something happened to her, so he felt like he owed it to her not to.

The princess wouldn’t leave him alone. He couldn’t seem to make her angry enough or hurt her feelings enough to keep her away from him. Eventually he stopped fighting her, because it was easier just to let her keep coming.

The same day the documents were signed, the princess had a baby, and he got a break from her for a little while, but soon enough she was back at his door, with the baby strapped to her chest, and she bullied her way in and set the baby in his arms.

The baby was small and had a little bit of very dark hair. He looked at everything with a serious expression, like he was thinking about something very important, but then when he looked at his mother he would smile, and for some reason it made Cassian feel a little better to see him.

“You’re going to be okay, you know, Cassian,” said Leia. “It’s just going to take a while.”

“I don’t want to be okay,” he confessed. He looked at the baby’s face and the baby looked at his. “I’ve never been okay. I don’t know how to be.”

“I don’t know if any of us do,” she said. “We’ll figure it out together, okay?” She sat next to him and stroked the top of the baby’s head. The baby waved his fat little fists around.

“He wants to hit me,” said Cassian.

“No he doesn’t,” said Leia. “He doesn’t even know those are his hands. Here, give me your hand.” He shifted so he had the baby with one arm and let Leia take his other hand. She touched his finger to the baby’s palm, and the baby’s fist closed around it. Cassian felt tears trying to escape out of his eyes and he blinked them back quickly and smiled down at the baby.

“He’s cute,” he said.

“Do you think he looks like me at all?” asked Leia. “I don’t think he does.”

“Maybe a little,” said Cassian. The baby still had hold of his finger and now he yawned and blinked his little eyes.

“I love him so much,” said Leia. “It’s terrifying. Ben,” she said. “This is your Uncle Cassian.” She leaned her head against Cassian’s shoulder for a moment and together they looked at her baby. “Everything’s going to be okay,” she said. “Okay?”

“Okay,” he said. He would try to believe her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading and supporting this story! Every single comment has meant so much to me. I'm sorry it had to end this way.
> 
> There is a third part to this series which I will probably be ready to start posting in the next week or two. I hope you will come back for that! Thanks again.


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